Convention Watch

Chris Matthews's unhinged, fuming performance on Monday's Morning Joe is a good reason why members of the GOP avoid MSNBC. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus aggressively battled the liberal cable anchor after the host unloaded on Mitt Romney for playing the "race card." [Must see video below the jump. MP3 audio here.] Asserting that just mentioning welfare is racist,…

On Sunday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Chuck Todd raised the invoked former President Bush and Hurricane Katrina from seven years ago  as potential embarrassments for the Romney campaign as Hurricane Isaac heads toward New Orleans the same week as the Republican National Convention. During a discussion of the GOP convention being delayed from Monday because of the hurricane, Todd…

The so-called “people’s convention” is scheduled to commence on Labor Day in Charlotte, but the “most open and accessible (convention) ever” won’t be sticking to the theme of transparency after all. Despite an earlier vow to reveal all contributors, Democratic officials are now refusing to do so until federal disclosure documents have to be filed in mid-October. To its credit, the…

When I hire a new employee, whether it is a musician, a crewmember or a driver several factors come into play. Of course, in the case of a musician, the first thing I consider is how well they play, how their style of playing goes with the band's music, and their stage presence. Another important factor for somebody becoming a member of The CDB is the respect they have for the heritage and…

Friday’s Washington Post carried an ad from PBS touting their two TV debate moderators: "Objective. Impartial. Independent. The NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer and Washington Week’s Gwen Ifill bring PBS’s tradition of integrity to the most important conversations in America – so you can make up your own mind."Sadly, that ad is not accurate. Even before addressing whether "independence" is demonstrated by…

ABC's George Stephanopoulos, who when interviewing John McCain six weeks ago scolded him for a criticism of Barack Obama (“I can't believe you believe that”), on Sunday's This Week prodded Obama to agree with those of his supporters who “heard subtle racial code” in the ridiculing, at the Republican convention, of his “community organizer” work. Stephanopoulos, who did challenge Obama to name…

When NewsBusters posted the screencap shown here as its Weekend Captionfest on Friday, the result was an outpouring of affectionate reader responses. Typical was this one, from "iveseenitall":The ladies in my house instantly fell for this kid.  "Oh" and "Oooh" and "Ah". The giggles, the pointing at the t.v. Love all around that night. The MSM lives in a different house.  Check out this candid…

A major media denigration of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin as a “wacko right-winger” didn't come on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN or even MSNBC, but on FNC from a regular contributor to the network: Morton Kondrake, who was hostile all last week to Palin in his appearances on Special Report with Brit Hume. Wrapping up the “Ups and Downs” segment on FNC's Beltway Boys this weekend with an “Up” for…

Declaring “I'm not that convinced that that's her baby,” far-left comedian Bill Maher, Friday night on his HBO show Real Time, forwarded left-wing blog rumors about how Trig Palin, born in April, is really the son of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol who is now pregnant. Maher raised his theory during a one-on-one interview with CNN's Jeffrey Toobin, who didn't accept Maher's belief in…

In his Friday "Political Memo," "Firing Up the Faithful With Echoes of Culture War Rhetoric," the New York Times's conservative-beat reporter David Kirkpatrick, watching the Republican Convention, uniquely managed to hear echoes of the GOP's 1992 convention -- specifically what Kirkpatrick called the "belligerence" of Pat Buchanan's "cultural war" speech, widely cited in the media (though not…

Were those evil Republicans attempting to carpet-bomb Andrea Mitchell with balloons at the RNC last night?  Chris Matthews mused about the possibility on Hardball this afternoon.  The footage of Andrea gamely batting away the balloons has received a lot of play.  This morning, the Today show had fun with it.  But Matthews seemed to conceive a more sinister scenario:CHRIS MATTHEWS: If you were…

Friday's "American Morning" featured a segment dedicated to fact checking Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's speech to the Republican National Convention. In introducing the reporter who did the fact checking, co-host Kiran Chetry claimed, "CNN's Deborah Feyerick is here to fact check Palin's speech and I'm sure whenever politics is involved we have to fact check these."…